


the words to your favorite song

by stupidgaytree



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Fae, Angst, But also, F/F, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Harpies, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Nightmares, Temporary Character Death, Trauma, Wingfic, chase ur fucken dreams., does this count as a wingfic. i wanna say its a wingfic., ehehehehe..............., hee hoo chapter 3.. big oof, its a mystery now i guess, its referenced anyways, lil bit, slightly more fantasy than normal...... eheh, this is entirely self indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-17
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 21:19:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14679720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidgaytree/pseuds/stupidgaytree
Summary: A lot can happen in the time it takes to forget a war — and everything it brought to you.A story about harpies, the fuzz behind your eyes, and second first kisses, but most of all the memory of the heart.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> headsup for Fucky Fonts near the end, might be hard to read. m sorry its 2 am im rlly tired

Goldcliff isn't what it used to be.

  
It was overrun by the forest some decade ago, by a burst of magic no one recognized. It became wild and untamed, impossible wonders of nature lurking within ruined buildings.

  
Most of its residents fled. Which was fine. It made more room for what the forest brought.

  
Those that did remain in Goldcliffe adapted. Refusing to leave their home for whatever reason, they survived their changing world and, in some cases, thrived.

  
The city’s newer tenants were… an interesting bunch.

  
Its old had been the status quo for a big city — lots of humans and halflings, some scattered elves and dwarves, the odd tiefling or half-orc here and there. But these people — they were the forest’s spawn, veins scrawled under their skin with the shadows cast by the trees, eyes glinting with the setting sun. They didn't adhere to the same rules as society, if they adhered to any at all, and they laughed like hyenas while they broke them. Fae and beasts alike ran wild, placing bets on who could win a race down what remained of Main Street. They came to be known as foresters.

  
When a small, humanoid figure steps onto the pavement one late spring evening, the creatures quiet their shrieking and just peer at her. Strange, otherworldly eyes pierce her being and make the hair on the back of her neck stand on end, but she takes another step, and another.

  
“Hello,” she says, only a few yards away from the closest of the pack. Her voice seems so small, but she inhales and continues.

  
“I’m, uh — I was Lieutenant Hurley. Now I guess I’m just Hurley, but,” she falters for a second when one of them chuckles, then keeps going. “But, uh, you all make a lot of noise, so. I wanna make a deal.”

  
They all seem to exchange glances. The curiosity is almost palpable, but they all remain calm, aside from some twitching ears and ruffled feathers.

  
“Yeah,” Hurley says, some confidence returning to her, “Yeah, I wanna race you guys.”

  
One of them, tall and quite literally willowy, shrieks with laughter, and a bipedal creature that _almost_ resembles a tabaxi turns and cuffs them around the ears. They quickly shut up, and all eyes return to Hurley with renewed interest.

  
“If I win, you guys have to make less of a racket,” she says.

  
“And if you lose?” one rumbles. It’s not unkind, which almost makes it more unsettling. None of them seem to want to hurt her — _it is what it is,_ their eyes say, _no rules to racing. No looking back._

  
“Um, then you can keep being loud,” Hurley offers weakly. She’s already starting to regret this, but they probably would have been less considerate if she just asked. They liked a challenge.

  
“You’re the size of a human child,” another hisses, and Hurley bristles. They keep talking, though. “No guarantee of safety. And I doubt y’could keep up. We don’t use ya wagons.” Their grin reminds Hurley of a shark.

  
“I know,” Hurley says. She _really_ regrets this.

  
Her gaze is drawn by feathers rustling and movement in the corner of her eye. Who she sees would resemble a half-elf woman if it weren’t for her yellow, bird-like eyes, fanged grin, and the large black wings sprouting from her back. The word _harpy_ pops into Hurley’s head as they stare at each other, the harpy’s gaze lazy.

  
After a long moment, the harpy says, “She could fly with me.” Her voice seems ill-suited for her surroundings — hell, her _appearance_. It’s not screechy or lilting, it’s low and smooth, and Hurley abruptly realizes her mouth is falling open a little. She snaps it shut.

  
“Well, that’s just unfair,” says the sharky one — fae, Hurley decides, and the willowy one some kind of nymph. “None of _us_ ’re cheaters.”

  
The harpy rolls her eyes. “Sure. But if it’s a fair race you want, she needs some help.”

  
“Ride?” Hurley squeaks out belatedly. Oh, gods, they’re all staring again. She clears her throat. “I mean — what do you mean, _ride?_ What does —“

  
“I mean, you’re tiny.” The harpy shrugs. “I can carry you.”

  
“You aren’t a wagon, Sloane. You’d be her partner, not transportation,” says a creature whose form Hurley _literally_ can’t make out.

  
The harpy — Sloane — seems to consider that for a moment. She shrugs again. “Fine.”

  
“Fine what?” Hurley asks.

  
“Like… that’s fine. _I_ don’t care either way if you win or lose. I have no bias.” She grins with very, very sharp teeth.

  
Before Hurley can reply, the fae says, “I still think it's unfair.”

  
“That's too bad,” says Sloane, “If she wants my help, she has it.”

  
There's some grumbling, but ultimately all eyes are on Hurley again, and she swallows.

  
“Um, thank you, Sloane,” she says. Sloane tips her head, still with that smile.

  
“Tomorrow, then,” says a figure apparently made of earth, with mud dripping from their hair to their shoulders.

  
_“Tomorrow?”_ Hurley says. Sloane glares at the figure.

  
“You wanted a challenge,” they say, “Here it is.”

  
“Gods, fuck — fine, yeah. Tomorrow. Gonna… yeah. Tomorrow.” Hurley stares at them all, and they stare back, and she turns on her heel and walks away.

  
Most of them stop watching after a few seconds, and Hurley can hear some of their footsteps moving away. But Hurley can feel one pair of eyes burning into the back of her neck, and she looks back to see Sloane inspecting her nails from where she's perched on a wrecked wagon, alone in the middle of the street.

 

***

 

The next day, the sky shines brightly on the crumbling towers and cracked streets of Goldcliff. Hurley slowly makes her way to the street where she struck her deal, apprehension climbing up her gut and into her throat, leaving a bad taste in her mouth. It only gets worse when she sees the crowd of foresters gathered around one that's dragging something sharp over the ground. As she approaches, she realizes the new fissure in the pavement must be the starting line, and one of the foresters looks over at her.

  
“We don't usually bother with this,” they say, “But we thought it might make things easier for you.”

  
“Um. Thank you?” She flashes an uncertain smile at them, and after a long moment, they bare their teeth back at her. Okay. That's a start.

  
“Hey.”

  
Hurley jumps before realizing the voice is familiar, and looks up to see Sloane perched on one of the few remaining lantern-poles left intact. “Hey — get down from there! You're gonna break it!”

  
Sloane cocks her head, seeming only amused, and Hurley remembers she doesn't exactly have authority anymore. So it startles her when Sloane shrugs, extends her wings, and glides smoothly to the ground in front of Hurley.

  
“As you wish,” she says teasingly, and gestures to a nearby building. “Look. You've got fans.”

  
There are a few curious faces in the broken windows, though most of them duck back down when Hurley meets their eyes. She shakes her head. “There's always a few watchers. They aren't here for me.”

  
“That's a shame,” Sloane says. She turns away before Hurley has time to decipher that, meandering over to the group. Hurley follows her, meeting the eyes of every forester that looks her way and raising her chin, standing a little taller.

  
They don't bother with ceremony to begin the race — apparently drawing a line is the most they've done in ages — instead just lining up and waiting. Hurley isn't sure what for until Sloane drops to a crouch and stares at her.

  
“You know about, like, piggy back rides, right?” Sloane asks when Hurley just looks at her for a few moments. Hurley shakes herself and nods quickly, moving to Sloane’s back and hesitantly climbing on. She has to scramble to stay on when Sloane stands up immediately afterward, and ends up wrapping her legs around Sloane’s ribs.

  
“My wings are gonna fuck your legs up if you do that,” Sloane mutters.

  
“I’ll manage.”

  
“Okay. Guess I’ll die.”

  
Before Hurley can reply, one of the loudest noises she's ever heard interrupts her, and she bites back a yell as Sloane’s wings snap into the air on either side of her and they lurch up and forwards, and then they're in the air, Sloane whooping as she does an entirely unnecessary loop through the air before rocketing forward and easily catching up to those on the ground.

  
“What the _fuck!”_ Hurley says, and then repeats it a few times. Sloane laughs, and Hurley finds herself laughing with her as they zoom between buildings and the trees that erupt from the ground like teeth. Sometimes they seem to lose the other racers, then they flash back into view as Sloane zig-zags through the streets.

  
“Show-off!” Hurley yells over the wind.

  
“Maybe!” Sloane replies.

  
The laughter fades from the air in seconds as Sloane swerves to avoid a crumbling wall. She snarls in frustration, and Hurley can feel it in her chest.

  
“Alright, _Lieutenant_ ,” she says, “What’s the strategy?”

  
“Um. Win.”

  
“Works for me.” And suddenly they’re falling. Hurley’s stomach drops out of her gut and she opens her mouth to yell, the ground rushing up below them, and then the racers are below them and she sees Sloane reach down to cuff one — shark fae, she realizes, almost pleased — right behind the head before pulling sharply up and to the right. She watches them go down with wide eyes.

  
“Sloane!”

  
“Oh, he’ll be fine, Miss Goody Two-Shoes,” Sloane says, “He’s got a thick skull.” They swing around something that might have been an apartment complex once. They've entered the part of the city that was most damaged in the initial disaster that brought Sloane and her circle here, and it looks even worse than Hurley remembers. She stares down at the wrecked streets — there vines have swallowed it, farther up a fissure splits it down the middle.

  
“I used to live here,” Hurley says absently, “When I was a kid.”

  
Sloane doesn’t reply, and Hurley almost forgets saying it in the first place when she suddenly swoops down again and knocks another racer off the street.

  
_“Please_ stop doing that,” Hurley gasps when they’ve regained altitude.

  
“I thought you wanted to win.”

  
“I don’t wanna kill anyone.”

  
Hurley can visualize the curl of Sloane’s lip when she says, “What, this isn’t some revenge plot for your city?”

  
“No? You guys are just fucking loud. I can’t sleep through screaming at three in the morning.”

  
“Oh,” Sloane says, then, “You could have just asked.”

  
“Would you say _yeah, sure?_ Or laugh in my face and vandalize my apartment?”

  
“Okay, that’s fair.” The tension’s evaporated. Hurley can’t see the racers nearby, and she can’t tell if she’s imagining their speed decreasing.

  
“Besides, _you_ all didn’t fuck up the city, mostly. You just moved in after the magic.”

  
Sloane is apparently very good at unsettling silences. After a few minutes with no response and still no other racers in sight, Hurley says, “Sloane?”

  
“I’m good,” she says, immediately. Hurley doesn’t have time to respond as Sloane abruptly goes into a near-vertical dive, pulling up at the last second to swing around a building. Hurley glances behind them at the road they’re now following and sees the group of racers behind them.

  
“What the _fuck,”_ she says.

  
“You say that as if you ever doubted me.”

 

“This feels less like a partnership and more like ‘Sloane shows off how she can still fly with someone on her back.’”

 

Sloane laughs at that, loud and wild, and Hurley grins too.

  
“Finish line’s by the cliff.” Sloane nods ahead, where the edge of the city is rapidly approaching. Hurley feels her heart leap into her throat.

  
“Is that… safe?”

  
“No, I’m gonna drop you over the edge when we get there,” Sloane deadpans. “Yeah, it’s safe. I can _fly.”_

  
They pass the border of Goldcliff without fanfare, which apparently doesn’t satisfy Sloane, who gives a loud whoop and yells, “Suckers!” over her shoulder.

  
“I don’t think they heard you,” Hurley says.

  
“S’the thought that counts. Also we totally just won. Like, the cliff is a formality. We win.”

  
“You’re gonna jinx us.”

  
“I’d like to see the gods try.”

  
Hurley opens her mouth, and her vision goes black.

  
When she wakes up, everything hurts. She’s on the ground, which is good because she’s not falling, and bad because she hit the fucking ground. She groans and rolls onto her side, blinking spots out of her eyes.

  
The cliff is in sight, but standing at the edge of it is the shark fae, grinning and flipping her the bird. Hurley scowls and looks to a mass of dark at the edge of her vision.

  
Sloane is curled up on the ground, wings tucked to her back and eyes closed. Hurley drags herself to her feet and walks over, crouching to make sure Sloane is still breathing before poking her in the ribs.

  
Sloane’s eyes snap open, locking onto Hurley immediately. Then she sits up, looking around wildly, turning at Hurley’s gesture to see the fae at the cliff’s edge. Anger blooms on her face, and she leaps to her feat, takes a running start, and launches herself into the air, flying straight for the fae. He notices her just in time and dives out of the way, scrambling back to the group of other racers that idles nearby.

  
“You motherfucker!” Sloane screeches, diving at him again. “That was cheating! That was fucking cheating!”

  
“It wasn’t me!” he bawls, pointing at a nearby forester with antennae and blank black eyes. “It was them! You know I dunno how to do that shit!”

  
Sloane turns her glare towards the other forester, who stares back and then murmurs, “He asked me to.”

  
“Well — well — you was workin’ with the halfling!” He points at Hurley now, who throws up her hands in exasperation. “How come I can’t have a team, huh?”

  
“We aren’t a team.”

  
“You’re on some thin _fucking_ ice, Maarvey,” Sloane snarls. Maarvey takes a step backward, looking somewhere between terrified and furious. Hurley raises her hand, and Sloane snaps around to look at her. “What?”

  
“We can try again tomorrow,” Hurley suggests. Sloane blinks at her.

  
“Oh, gods,” Maarvey mutters. The amorphous blob moves in his general direction and he flinches away.

  
“Are you… that determined to get us to be quiet?” Sloane asks, an awed expression dawning in her eyes.

  
“Yes,” Hurley says firmly. She flips Maarvey the bird, turns, and starts walking away.

  
She makes it about five feet before someone scoops her up and she’s lifted into the air. She yelps, scrambling for a more secure grip, and Sloane’s laughter comes from somewhere above her.

  
“Chill out, Hurls,” she teases, and Hurley almost bites her tongue closing her mouth.

  
The flight back to the city is uneventful, and Sloane plops Hurley down at the starting line of the race before alighting back on the lantern-pole and stretching out her wings dramatically. Hurley glares up at her from where she lays on the pavement with a scraped chin and gets up, dusting herself off with maybe the barest trace of a smile.

  
When she looks back up, Sloane is inspecting her hand with a frown. Dark green fluid is smeared on it, and now that Hurley looks, she sees it oozing from a cut under Sloane’s jaw. “What the hell is that?”

  
Sloane looks down at her quizzically. “My blood? Don’t be rude.”

  
“Why are you _bleeding green?”_

  
“That’s just how it is on this bitch of a planet.”

  
“Are you… okay?”

  
Sloane considers that, shrugs, and shakes her hand. The blood falls to the ground and hisses as it sinks into the pavement.

  
_“What the fuck.”_

  
Sloane ignores Hurley’s comment and stretches again, wiggling her fingers at the sky like she’s casting a spell and scrunching up her nose. It’s weirdly cute, and Hurley has to remind herself that Sloane’s blood apparently has acidic qualities.

  
They lose the next race, and the next. They win the fourth, and at that point Hurley’s decided that racing is actually fun, and definitely exhilarating as hell.

  
The foresters quiet down as promised, although one night Hurley wakes up to the sound of someone shrieking in less of a “hell yeah, racing” way and more of a “fuck, please don’t kill me” way. When she peers out the window, she sees Maarvey making a hasty escape, howling all the way, a dark shape hot on his heels. When he disappears from view, they look up, and Hurley sees dark hair falling over familiar yellow eyes.

  
“He was gonna throw a rock in your window,” Sloane yells.

  
“Did you follow him here?”

  
“Yeah, I’m gonna kick his ass, but he just got away, so I’m gonna go find him. Night.”

  
She disappears before Hurley can respond. The next day, Maarvey’s grin is missing a few teeth, and Sloane looks immensely satisfied, even when they’re back a few days later. It’s almost touching.

  
Sloane also has a habit of leaving jewelry she either scavenges or steals on Hurley’s windowsill. Hurley can’t bring herself to be mad about the stealing, for some reason. Especially after she wears an earring to a race once and Sloane grins so wide Hurley can see her molars.

  
Hurley realizes after a few months that things are… better. Something’s changed, and people are getting out more, starting to rebuild. No one dares digging up the trees, but it looks a little nicer. She says as much to Sloane once, on the roof of something she thinks used to be a warehouse. She doesn’t really remember how they ended up there, but it’s fine, because they’re having a good time and the sun is setting and it looks nice washing over the city.

  
“Maybe you’re good luck,” Sloane says.

  
“I’ve been here my whole life. Why would luck kick in now?”

  
Sloane shrugs. “I mean, me too, but —”

  
She stops, mouth hanging open, eyes cloudy and confused. Hurley tries to think about what she said, but the concept it presents — she can’t wrap her mind around it. The pieces refuse to connect.

  
“What did you say?” she asks. Sloane shakes her head slowly.

  
“I don’t… know. It just — it slipped out.”

  
“You’ve been — have you —” She can’t form the words in her mouth. She can feel a headache building behind her eyes and she rubs at them before looking up.

  
Sloane looks _scared._

  
“I don’t know,” she repeats. “Hurley, I don’t _know.”_

 

***

 

The next day, Hurley doesn’t remember the conversation. She’s left with confusion and an odd sadness, like when she was moving out of her parents’ house and realized she was missing pictures of her and her old friends.

  
When she turns up at the starting line, only the antennae forester is there. They regard her with an unblinking gaze for a moment. “You’re looking for something.”

  
It’s not a question. Hurley stares back at them. “Where is everyone?”

  
They wave their hand vaguely. “Around. Nobody tells me anything.”

  
“Where’s Sloane?”

  
“How should I know?” There’s a pause as they look at her for another while. “That’s what you’re looking for, right?”

  
Hurley kind of wants to kick something. “Uh, yeah?”

  
“No, no, not Sloane. Or… not quite.” They go back to what they were doing when Hurley approached — inspecting their robes for lint. “Weaving District. There’s a tunnel there. You’ll figure it out.”

  
“We don’t — there isn’t a Weaving District.”

  
They look at her almost sadly. “Not anymore.”

 

***

 

It takes looking through decade-old records, half of which Hurley can’t for the life of her focus on to read, but she finds the Weaving District.

  
It was that worst part of the city, where she grew up — she can’t believe she forgot it — and after three hours of searching, she finds a tunnel.

  
She drops down the five feet from the hole and pauses to get her bearings, peering down the length of it. There’s no end in sight, and with a resigned sigh, she starts walking.

  
It’s only been fifteen minutes when she finds an old cave-in. From what she can tell, it’s a collapsed building, the foundations sinking into the earth, but there’s a few battered cabinets lying around. She jimmies one open, loathing the idea even now of so blatantly breaking the law, but nobody else cares about these, probably. And who’s gonna arrest her?

  
Inside are files. She pulls them out, folder by folder, and starts going through them. Criminal records, mostly, with a few case reports here and there. She doesn’t recognize any names or faces, until she pulls one out and almost drops it out of surprise.  
Staring back at her from a picture pinned to the paper is a half-elf woman. She has dark hair, and dark eyes, and she’s sticking her tongue out at whoever took the picture.

  
The name scrawled at the top is in ink, in familiar handwriting. It’s all familiar handwriting — even the pages hastily pinned on with case report upon report is in that same smudgy scrawl, with the lines through the z’s, sevens, and zeroes.

 

H̵̡̩͆͜e̸̛͎͊̌̋̒̿͒͋̃̌̈́̉̈́r̶̢̧̳̥̒̆̇͘ͅ ̶̧͎̻̯̭̟̻̀̈́̅̐̄͊̍̾̓̂̈́̕͜͝͝ͅḧ̶͍̮́̓͐̉͛̊̍̇̔͆̂͌̐͆̉ą̷̢̡̧͕̳͇̭̞͎̟̘̲̙̣͚̰̘͉̖͠ͅņ̸̧̨̥̖͆̅̏̒̈́͗͌̽̉̀͘̕d̴̢̲̼͖̻̩̹̙͙̻̮͕̫͙̲̿̓̃̀̃͆̽́̾̚͘͘w̸̨̦͔͔͚͚̹̤̩͖̙͉̱͚̏͐̿̄́͑̐̐̋̇̌͐̽͛͗̿͌̎̾͋̕̚͜͠ͅŗ̷̧̛̛͕̖͇̘̲̜̲̭̖̻͓͖̱̜̺̲̖̮̜̈́̔̀̂̌̑̿̐͗̈͗̓̃̉̒̒̅̇́̊̂͜i̷̳̘̳͙̠̥͉͙̪̟̫̤͖͍͇̰̱̳̳͈̝̟͕̲̅̅̕̕͝͝͝ṫ̵̡̰̖̜̬̪̼̬͍̥̤̠͕͕̀̎̉͜͜͝ì̴̛̞̝̜̖̘̹̳̼̣̰̭̰̭̝̣̘̩͓̽̎͗͊́̐͆̊̃̈́͛̀͌̏͆͗̊͝͝ǹ̴̡̗͙̘͔̥̙̻͔̱̆̒̈́̐̿͑̓̄̌́̾̿̑̈́̄̎͒̒͘̕ģ̴̛̦͇̰̤̅̊̏̍͒̀̌̂̇͂̔̀̀͐͋̿̈́̒͝ͅ

 

She can see and understand each individual letter making up the woman’s name, but they refuse to connect in her head. She can’t make the conclusion. She can’t make any conclusion.

 

S̵l̴o̷a̷n̵e̴.̸ Š̴̪͓̫̥̩̤͐͆́͗l̶̩̟̜̀ỏ̸̧͈̗̺͙̽͊̊ä̸̪̟̬͇̣̩́͆̽̊n̵̳̳̼̘̪̜̍͂̇̑̄̓͆̔͜ę̵̰͗́͗̅̄̚.̵̖̘̟̞̠͖̥͗̂ Ş̶̢̛̳̳̼̞̣̙͊̂̑̈́͠l̷̦̺̬̱̻̲̺͖̝̜̥̄̽̽͜o̴̢̨̧̝̼̖̹̠̘̤͎̫̲̻̫͝ͅͅa̸̧̨̡̛͖͕̝͈̠̻̠̝̘̣̰̳͆̇̓́̓̌̆̑̄̾͗́̃̔̔̈́̓̉͑͊̈̑͐͛̂́̆̂͊͘̕̚̚͜͠ņ̷̨̧̧̛̛͎̩̗͖̙͓̫̝͖̭͎̣̝͎͖͍̱̻̯͉̫̲̖̹̐̐̓͛͋̎̇̇͐͛̍̀͑͆̑̆̀̑̀̂̀̈̿͛̋̈́̅̚̕͜͝͝͝͠e̴̡̛̜̰̲̞̭̫̬̘͓̲̮͇̭̪̲͙̠̪̝͐̿̎̾̂̌̌͗͌̈́̀̑͂̑̐̒̍̿͒̓́́̽̾̄͠.̷͈̲͉̰͉̙̪̺̱̺̱̫̟̜͔̊̿̓̍̉̒̆̅͘

 

The Raven.

  
She takes the papers with her when she leaves. Maybe Sloane will understand it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is almost twice as long as the last chapter...........  
> i dont think i need to warn for anything specific? lmk if i should but this chap was.... fun to write. if the ends confusing i promise its explained next chap i just wanted this done

There's a place in the middle of Goldcliff where the ground is ruptured to literal pieces, and the trees are so overgrown and knit together they almost form a wall. Sloane finds herself drawn there after that night with Hurley on the roof. It's familiar. Not comforting, but for once it's something she does know.

  
She stands at the edge of it with the moon overhead, staring at the epicenter, because that's what it is. An explosion happened there. She knows that. She remembers the ache in every muscle and the shrapnel in her wings.

  
She doesn't know anything but that she woke up there, with the trees crowding around her and her memories fuzzy. She knew two things then: her name was Sloane, and she wasn't good.

  
She’d gotten up and been surprised for a moment by her wings, and then she thought, no, I have wings. This is alright.

  
She didn't remember, though. She never did. She never remembered how she got to where she was, or where she'd been before, or whose ring was in her breast pocket. Her mind simply skipped over it, and after a while she stopped caring. No one else seemed to remember, either, and no one batted an eye while Sloane taught herself to fly.

  
Hurley remembered.

  
Hurley knew where she grew up, and she knew that she had been a lieutenant —  _Lieutenant Hurley_. Sloane didn't know what to think about that.

  
And that night, on the roof — she couldn't even _think_ what she'd said. Sometimes she spelled it out in her head, but the letters refused to connect. She even tried writing it in Elvish. (She doesn't remember learning Elvish, not that she knows much.)

  
So she's here again, retracing her steps. Magic still thrums through the ground here. It's everywhere in Goldcliff now, but here Sloane can feel it in her chest and bones. It gives her a mild headache, but it's familiar, too. It makes her want to run. She clenches her jaw and makes her way to the center.

  
There are footprints there, sunk into the stone. They would look carved if the edges weren't so jagged and rough, with fractures spreading out from them like whatever left them there came down hard. Sloane crouches down to look at them, tilting her head and chewing her lip. A thought occurs to her, but before she can process it, her mind fills with static. She reels backwards, stumbling over rubble and blinking furiously, her ears ringing. She brings her hands up to her face and sees them trembling.

  
“What the fuck,” she says. Her own voice sounds distant and distorted, like she’s underwater. She takes a few moments to let her head clear, and when it does, whatever she thought of is gone, leaving her with a faint impression in the back of her mind. She swears a few times to herself, then shouts in frustration. No one’s listening anyways.  
  
She approaches the footsteps again and considers them for a moment. Carefully keeping her mind blank, she steps into them.

  
They fit the old boots she's wearing as perfectly as she could expect. She has a moment of triumph before that static comes back, this time almost screaming into her head, and she falls on her ass scrambling to get away. Her panic ramps up to the point of pure adrenaline when the ground starts crumbling away before her, and she bolts for the wall. She claws her way up, wings flapping wildly, feels her nail snap on the bark and keeps going with a snarl of pain.

  
She reaches the top panting, flexing her fingers and staring at the blood dripping from her ruined nail. It's dark green and gooey, like all her blood, and as she watches it falls to the ground. She doesn't need to hear it to know it hisses when it hits the concrete.

  
After a few minutes, she glances behind her. A gaping hole has opened up in the ground where the footprints had been, nothing in it that Sloane can see but shadows.

  
“What the shit,” Sloane says, and is delighted to find she can hear properly again. Slowly she climbs back down, every step towards the hole less hesitant until she stands in front of it, staring into the darkness. She knows something else now.  
  
Something’s in there.

 

***

 

The hole opens into a chasm, which leads into a tunnel. The walls are cold stone, sometimes dripping with water and sometimes with something warm Sloane doesn't want to identify. She climbs over rubble and squeezes through cracks, wings tucked as close to her back as they'll get and still scraping the walls, and eventually finds a place where the walls open up into a chamber.

  
There's a tug in her gut. It's been there for a while, but as she steps into the chamber it solidifies into a claw of ice and embeds itself into her chest. It melts away when she sees something in the corner.

  
It's a few scraps of something that she's hesitant to call fabric, barely clinging to each other by thin strings. It's old, and tattered, and decomposing, and she reaches out to pick it up.

  
For a second, she knows everything.

  
Then she is on her knees, with an empty head and emptier chest, hands full of dust and unanswered questions.

  
She stays there for a while, not feeling much of anything except the damp air of the tunnel on the back of her neck. When she resurfaces, it's with a dull anger coating her tongue that tastes like iron.

  
She struggles to her feet, the dust that once was a belt tumbling from her hands to the ground, and spits out the blood in her mouth. It coats her teeth and lips, too, and when it hits the ground it's red. Somehow, it doesn't surprise her.

  
Sunlight greets her sooner than she expected. She doesn't think to wonder how long she sat alone in the cavern, trying to think of everything that’s on the tip of her tongue. She just climbs out of the hole in the ground and drags herself to the wall, where she curls up and closes her eyes against the sunrise.

  
When she wakes, there are vines curled around her wrists, her ankles and waist and wings and snaking around her chest.

  
It's familiar.

  
She screams, clawing at the vines, the ground, her own skin, scrambling to some semblance of safety. Her vision flicks in and out, the roaring in her ears accompanied by static invading her sight and thoughts.

  
_I'm going to die, I'm going to die_ , something in her howls, with a certainty that shakes her to her core. She's Sloane, she's always gotten out of tight spots like this none the worse for wear. But this — this brings back those things on the tip of her tongue and this time they taste like poison.

  
_This time_.

  
She’s back on top of the wall, vines faltering halfway up, but she can still feel the phantom pain of their thorns digging into her thigh. The vines don’t have thorns. Her hands tremble on the bark, every instinct telling her _this is where you die,_ but her heartbeat is loud in her ears. She’s alive, now. _Now_. Was she dead?

  
The static is back. She hunches over herself, shuddering and gasping, taking a few minutes to notice the tears streaking her cheeks.

  
What does she know? Her name is Sloane. She is not good, but maybe she was once. She knows Elvish and had to teach herself to fly.

  
She misses Hurley.

  
It’s a strange thing, to feel such an ache for someone you have no reason to care for. Hurley is fun and kind and stubborn, but she’s just Sloane’s partner.

  
Just is the wrong word.

  
She’s Sloane’s friend, and Sloane misses her with a ferocity that scares her. It tugs deep in her chest and almost brings her back to tears. Maybe she knows next to nothing, but Hurley remembers her childhood home and snorts when she laughs and cuts her own hair and Sloane knows that she would give anything to know enough about herself to love Hurley as deeply as some buried instinct inside her does.

  
The vines have stopped moving beneath her. The static is quieted. She gathers herself and jumps back to the ground, steadying her landing with wings outstretched. Feet on solid ground once more, she realizes she doesn't know what to do. She wants so badly to go home, but home is a vague shape in her mind's eye with no path through the garden to follow.

  
She finds herself at a crumbling apartment, staring up at a dark hole that would be a window if there were any glass left in it. Instead there are ratty green curtains with embroidered birds and rams on the hem.

  
There is one thing Hurley doesn't know, Sloane thinks. She has no idea where she got those curtains.

  
Sloane is not good. But Hurley must see something in there she doesn't, because when she sees Sloane perched outside her window with a blank look on her face, torn clothes, and tattered wings, she pulls her inside, kisses her on the forehead and doesn't ask where she went. She pulls out a first aid kit and gets to work wiping away the blood and cleaning out the scrapes, and when the bandages run dry she promises she’ll get more in the morning.

  
“I’m sorry for leaving,” Sloane says, even though it's only been a day. Her voice scratches her throat.

  
“I know,” Hurley says, softer than Sloane has ever heard and exactly what she expected. Something wraps itself around Sloane’s heart and squeezes, roots digging deep.

  
She still misses Hurley, and she still wants to go home.

 

***

 

She gets used to a dim buzz in the back of her mind. It gets worse if she thinks about much of anything, so she distracts herself by exploring Goldcliff.

  
The city has started shifting since the night she left. Streets and buildings collapse in on themselves with a new fervor, but there’s also been whisperings of entire buildings disappearing. People, too. It feels like her fault, and that, at least, stands out clear in her mind. Why does she care?

  
The vines follow her now. Something changed when she found that belt in the tunnels. Something left her behind, made her blood go red and apparently gave her extraordinarily bad luck with plants. She’s not sure yet if it’s a curse or a blessing.

  
Once, while exploring, she finds a kid wandering around. He doesn’t seem lost, and she follows him around for a while from the roofs, more out of curiosity than compulsion, which is a nice change. He has a backpack slung over his shoulder and his nose in a notebook, and more than once Sloane winces when he stumbles over rubble.

  
He's halfway down Tyler Street when he pauses and looks up, frowning and pushing his glasses farther up on his face. A cap with a feather in it sits neatly on his curly black hair, and he's even got a little bow tie. Sloane squints down at him. What's such a fancy little kid doing out here alone?

  
She nearly jumps out of her skin when he calls, “Ma’am? I know you're there.” She starts scrambling for the other side of the roof, and the kid says, “Oh, wow, you have wings!”

  
Her shoulders slump and she turns to look down at him. He's grinning up at her and waving, and she can't even gather the willpower to snarl. “What do you want?”

  
“Oh, well, I was just saying hello, ma’am. But if you don't mind, I have a very important investigation in this city and getting to ask you some questions would be wonderful!” He pauses to take a breath and adds, “Ma’am.”

  
“Investigation?” Sloane asks, one eye on the ground, trying to decide whether she could just jump down or glide.

  
“Oh, yes, ma’am! I don't mean to brag, but I’m the World’s Greatest Detective!”

  
Sloane can _hear_ the proper noun. “Yeah? You must be pretty smart.”

  
“I think so, ma’am!”

  
“Hmm. Hey, kid, back up a little.”

  
“Um, okay.”

  
Sloane waits until he's standing at the curb to launch herself off the roof. The kid yells something she doesn't catch, and runs over to her seconds after her feet hit the ground.

  
“Ma’am, are you okay?” he asks. Sweet kid.

  
Sloane grins. “I’m good, kiddo. I know it looked cool, but don't try it at home.”

  
“I wasn't gonna, ma’am!” he insists, then smiles again. “It _was_ really cool, though.”

  
She sits down, crossing her legs and propping her elbows on her knees. The kid follows suit, pulling out a pencil and straightening his glasses again, and then looks up at her and holds out a hand.

  
“My name’s Angus McDonald,” he says. Sloane takes his hand and shakes it.

  
“Sloane,” she says.

  
Angus frowns down at his notebook. “Is that your last name?”

  
“Nope. S’my first.”

  
“Uh… huh. Okay. Do you know your last name?”

  
Sloane stares at him. “What do you mean, do I know my last name?”

  
“It’s good if you do, but lots of people here don't,” he says, “So do you?”

  
“I…” Sloane can hear the static coming back in. She twitches her ears and squeezes her eyes shut.

  
“No,” she says after a long moment. She opens her eyes to see Angus chewing on his lip and nodding. He looks a little sad and very thoughtful.

  
“You know, some people outside of here have started calling Goldcliff the ‘Lost City,’” he tells her, “Mostly because you can barely get to it anymore, but also ‘cause lots of people don’t remember much about it.”

  
“People can’t get in?”

  
Angus nods. “There’s this giant gulch that opened all around. The sides are sheer and you can’t see the bottom.”

  
“How’d you get in?”

  
He smiles. “I went all the way around and there was kind of a bridge by the northern end of the city. It wasn’t that hard. You just have to look for it.”

  
Sloane leans back a little and stares up at the sky. It probably happened when the magic came, so nearly a decade of the city being cut off — no wonder people’d started calling it lost.

  
Angus continues after a little bit. “That’s what I was investigating. Or part of it. Somebody came to me in Neverwinter really confused and upset and talking about how someone was missing, but they didn’t remember who. I dug deeper, and there’s tons of similar reports.” He shows his notebook to her. It’s filled page upon page with names, places, events.

  
“Wow,” Sloane says.

  
He nods. “Something big happened that made lots of people forget things, all at once. And it’s collective, too! See, look.” He pulls a paper from his backpack and hands it to her. Sloane sees a name, a face, personal details — but she can’t understand any of it.

  
“Can you read it?” he asks. She shakes her head and hands it back. “That’s what I thought. I can’t either, which is really weird, because —”

  
“‘Cause you’re smart.”

  
“Yeah!” He shuffles some things around and picks his pencil back up off the ground. “Okay. I’m gonna ask some questions now. You’re my first interview here.” He pauses, then adds, “I’ve never met a harpy before.”

  
“Me neither,” Sloane says. “Only me.”

  
“What about your parents?”

  
He must recognize Sloane’s expression, because he says, “You don’t remember them either, huh?”

  
“Fuck, you are smart,” she replies, then claps a hand over her mouth. “Oh, dude, please don’t repeat that to anyone ever.”

  
“It’s okay. My grandpa swore a lot, and I met some people on a train a while ago who did too.”

  
“Oh. Okay.” Sloane shifts on the ground and readjusts her wings. “Next question anytime.”

  
“This is my first real one, ma’am. How long have you been in Goldcliff?”

  
“Uh, at least… ten. Ten years? Yeah.” She hesitates. The fucking static is almost a whine in her ears now. “But, uh, once I was talking to someone and I wasn’t thinking and I told her I’d been here my whole life.”

  
The words don’t sound like words to her ears, but Angus nods like he understands perfectly. “Okay. You don’t remember being here for longer than ten years?”

  
“No.”

  
“Okay.”

  
Sloane clears her throat. “Do you know what happened here, ten years ago?”

  
He shakes his head.

  
“Uh, something really bad. It’s why all the plant shit is here.” She waves her hand at a nearby tree. “Like, a _lot_ of magic. It’s why all the super magic people are here, too.”

  
He peers at her, and when she doesn’t continue he says softly, “But not you.”

  
“I used to think so, ‘cause I woke up the — the night after, in this place that looked like an explosion hit it. Right in the middle of the city.” Her head is starting to hurt. “But I went back, a while ago, right? And these footprints in the middle of it, they fit my boots, and then this cave opened up.”

  
Angus is listening intently, scribbling in his notebook so fast Sloane would be surprised if his handwriting was legible. She keeps going. “So I went down there and I found — a belt? And I touched it and — Angus, I think I remembered for a second.”

  
“Remembered what?” he says urgently. Sloane shakes her head.

  
“I don’t know anymore. But — this is gonna sound gross — my blood used to be green, and after all that happened, it was red. It hasn’t been green since.”

  
“...Yeah, that is gross. Here’s my theory.” He snaps his notebook shut and leans closer to her. “Tell me when I lose you. I think the explosion site is where the magic came from.”

  
“Gotcha so far,” Sloane says.

  
“Okay. The belt has something to do with it. Okay, maybe that’s obvious, but definitely I think maybe whatever made you remember is very powerful. Definitely powerful enough to do the plant stuff.”

  
Sloane nods.

  
“If you’ve been here your whole life and don’t remember it, and the belt made you remember — there’s something there. There’s a very big something there. I think maybe the belt did something to you, and you forgot it, but I don’t — I don’t know why you’d forget _everything_.”

  
“Beats me.”

  
“Do you remember anything else?” he asks, “Oh, do you — do you have the belt?”

  
Something hardens in Sloane’s chest when she remembers the belt crumbling to dust in her hands, and it climbs up her throat when she remembers vines wrapping around it. “The belt’s gone.”

  
“Gone?”

  
“It fell apart or something. It was super old and beat up.” Sloane swallows. “The vines tried to kill me afterwards.”

  
Angus’s eyes widen comically behind his glasses. “What?”

  
“Yeah. It — it was bad. I really thought I was gonna die. I —” She stops and curls her fingers into the fabric of her shirt. “It felt like… it’d happened before.”

  
Angus looks like he’s just invented the wheel. “Oh my — okay, that’s horrible, but Sloane, that’s it!”

  
“It’s what?”

  
He starts ticking off on his fingers. “You don’t remember anything past the magic, you woke up at the explosion site, where the belt is. The belt did the plant stuff, probably, and being strangled by vines is familiar to you. Sloane —”

  
She doesn’t hear his next words, because her thoughts follow his logic and the static _screams_. She presses her hands to her ears but it’s in her head, her vision flicks in and out and then out for good.

  
When she regains consciousness, the ground is cold underneath her and someone is shaking her shoulder. She groans and lifts herself up on her elbows, blinking her eyes open and staring directly into the face of Angus.

  
“Ma’am, are you okay?” he asks. Sloane rubs her face.

  
“‘M… decent. You?”

  
“I’m fine, ma’am. You were the one who collapsed.” He glances nervously at something over her shoulder. “Also, um, we may have a problem?”

  
She turns to see what he’s looking at. Evening has come while she was passed out — did Angus wait for her? Where are the kid’s parents? — and several pairs of eyes are glaring at them from the shadows. “Oh, these motherfuckers.”

  
“Takes one to know one!” Maarvey crows. His form quickly backs away as she drags herself to her feet and then full height and begins prowling towards him. The other Hammerheads, as Maarvey likes to call his little gaggle, chitter nervously amongst themselves and promptly disappear when Sloane bares her teeth at them.

  
“Fuck off, Maarvey,” she hisses, “You’re an asshole, but you don’t wanna hurt a kid with me nearby.”

  
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he mutters, then puffs out his chest and grins. “I was just here to give ya a message!”

  
“Spill it before I spill your guts.”

  
He deflates immediately, stammering something or other about needing his guts, and Sloane says, “Don’t fucking test me today, asshat. What’s the message?”

  
“Uh, uh, uh, Hurley,” he babbles, “Hurley was lookin’ for ya. Dunno why.” He turns tail and runs, leaving Sloane staring stiffly after him.

  
“Um, Miss Sloane?” Angus says, “Who’s Hurley?”

  
“She’s my partner,” Sloane says. It’s the first thing that comes to mind. When she turns to look at Angus, his expression has brightened considerably.

  
“Would she let me interview her?” he asks excitedly, “I know what happened to you, mostly, I think, but there’s always more to a story!”

  
“Sure, kiddo. Hey, have you ever flown before?”

  
He shakes his head. “No, ma’am. I was on a train once, and a wizard threw me out the back of it.”

  
“What the — alright.” She looks down at him for a few moments. He’s taller than Hurley by a lot — she’d put Hurley at three foot four, but this kid is at least five feet. Maybe a little more. “You okay if I carry you?”

  
He nods, and she crouches to let him climb on her back. He clings tight around her shoulders and carefully shifts away from her wings, and after a running start, Sloane leaps into the air and quickly starts gaining altitude.

  
They fly over the explosion site on the way to Hurley’s apartment, and Angus watches it go by over her shoulder with wide eyes but says nothing. When they’ve left it far behind, he whispers, “That could definitely kill someone.” Sloane doesn’t dare answer.

  
It takes Sloane longer than it should have to locate Hurley’s apartment, especially since she knows where it is. She flies over it a few times before Angus taps her shoulder and points downward.

  
Hurley is there, waving up at them. Behind her is a wide fissure in the ground and her apartment, half-collapsed.

  
“Oh, shit,” Sloane says.

  
“Oh no,” Angus agrees.

  
Hurley is making her way towards them before they even reach the ground. She squints up at Angus. “Who’re you?”

  
“Angus McDonald, ma’am. World’s Greatest Detective.”

  
She glances at Sloane. “Where’d you find the kid?”

  
“Wandering around looking for people to interview.”

  
Hurley turns an incredulous look back to Angus, who nods and smiles. “Alone? How old are you?”

  
“I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself, ma’am,” he reassures her, and after a moment of thought he says, “I’m ten.”

  
“Great.” Hurley throws her hands up in the air and turns to glare at what’s left of the apartment. “A kid materializes, and a perfectly good living space collapses.”

  
“It wasn’t that good,” Sloane points out.

  
“It was livable, wasn’t it?”

  
“It’s okay,” Angus pipes up, “I have a place to stay.”

  
They both turn to stare at him, then exchange disbelieving glances.

  
“My grandpa owns a place in most major cities, legally speaking,” he explains, “Just in case.”

  
“Just in case,” Hurley echoes. Sloane scrunches up her nose at the idea of having so much money, but to Angus’s credit, he sure doesn’t act like it.

  
“Um, here.” He opens his notebook to a page near the back and shows them a map that looks drawn with an unsteady hand. Sure enough, Sloane knows the place scribbled and circled on the lined paper.

  
“Is that place still upright?” Hurley muses. Sloane shrugs.

  
“Better than, uh.” She gestures to the wreckage behind them. Hurley rolls her eyes.

  
“Ma’am, how did you get clear of the collapse?” Angus asks.

  
“Uh, I ran,” Hurley says, “All my sh— stuff’s gone, though.”

  
“You can swear, ma’am,” Angus reassures her, “Miss Sloane said fuck.”

  
Hurley promptly swats Sloane gently on the arm. Sloane fake-yelps and turns a fake-hurt expression to Angus, who looks real-alarmed. She quickly replaces her pout with a good-natured grin.

  
“You know where the place is?” she asks Hurley.

  
“You can read.”

  
“You know I do all my navigation on impulse and luck.”

  
Hurley sighs. “Angus, you wanna help me out here?”

  
He nods and starts pointing things out to Hurley on the map while Sloane wanders towards the wreckage. She easily clears the fissure and starts poking around in what remains of the building. No bodies, which is good.

  
She does find those shitty embroidered curtains, though. She tucks them under one arm and keeps shuffling around, lifting up bigger chunks of concrete when she needs to.

  
Her hand hits something small, cold, and metallic. She pulls it from the nook it’s nestled in, scowling as the rock scrapes her wrist, and peers down at her palm and the ring that rests in it.

  
Its silver sheen is tarnished by age as well as dust, but she can still feel small grooves carved into the inside loop. They seem to form words, but she can’t quite tell what they say. She never has been — she realizes this is the ring she woke up with in her pocket. It must have fallen out in Hurley’s apartment somewhere.

  
It’s too small for any of her fingers but her pinky, but she puts it back into her pocket anyways. It feels like something clicking into place.

  
“Sloane, what are you doing?” Hurley yells behind her. Sloane turns and holds up the curtains triumphantly. Even from here, she can clearly see Hurley’s palm pressed to her face, and the smile hidden behind it.

 

***

 

The walk to Angus’s grandfather’s house — because Hurley insists they’re walking — is shorter than Sloane expected. They stop in front of a modest two-story house at the edge of what had once been the suburbs, and Angus grins at both of them before taking off for the door.

  
He’s already inside and shouting about various things he’s found by the time Hurley and Sloane reach the front steps. Every surface has a layer of dust covering it, and Sloane counts three clocks frozen mid-tick.

  
When Sloane finds him, Angus has claimed a small room with a twin-sized bed in one corner and a bookshelf in the other. He sitting on the bed with a book and looks up and quickly down again when she enters the room, and Sloane could swear she sees him wipe his eyes.

  
“Hi, Miss Sloane,” he says.

  
“Hey, kid,” she says, plopping down next to him and carefully tucking in her wings. “What’s that book about?”

  
He glances at her almost warily. “Are you gonna call me a nerd?”

  
“Anyone who reads a single book is a nerd, including me.”

  
He thinks about that for a moment. “Or a wimp?”

  
“Nope.”

  
He hesitates, then tilts the book in her direction. The pages are filled with an elegant handwriting that kind of messes with her eyes, and she looks back at Angus for an explanation.

  
“It’s one of my grandpa’s old journals,” he says quietly, “I didn’t realize he’d actually lived here.”

  
“Oh.”

  
Angus stares at the pages for a little while longer. “He died a few weeks ago,” he says finally. “Right after I got to Neverwinter to see him. The last thing he said to me was that I have to make everyone proud.”

  
“Aw, Angus.” Sloane isn’t sure what to do in this situation. It gets worse when she realizes the expression on Angus’s face right now is a little familiar too.

  
He sniffles and takes off his glasses, wiping them on his sweater. “Everyone being — uh, being the family. I don’t really know where they are, he took care of me pretty much forever, so, um.”

  
“You don’t have anyone?” Sloane asks, heart sinking into her stomach as Angus shakes his head.

  
“Y’know there’s still — still the family money and all that, so I’m not — I’m okay there, but….” He trails off, and then snaps the journal shut. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to — to do that.”

  
“It’s okay. Hey —” Sloane reaches to touch his shoulder. “Hey, you’re ten years old, dude. You don’t have to make anyone proud.”

  
He just looks at her, and Sloane does some quick math in her head. “Hell, I’m — gods. I’m almost thirty, and I’ve made me, myself, and I proud.”

  
“And Hurley,” Angus says. He adds, “Maybe you don’t know that, but I think she’s proud of you. For something.”

  
“And you know what? I am happy to do that. You’re a _kid_. You’re supposed to be, I dunno, stealing lollipops from candy stores.”

  
“Or buying them.”

  
“Whatever. Angus, hey. I promise you, you don’t owe anyone _anything_.”

  
He sniffles again, then lunges forward and grabs her in a hug. Sloane is frozen for a few seconds before she remembers how this is supposed to work and slowly goes to return it. After a long moment, Angus releases a soft sob and Sloane uncertainly pats his shoulder.

  
“Thank you,” he whispers after a few minutes of crying gently on Sloane’s shoulder. Sloane nods wordlessly and he pulls away, wiping his eyes.

  
“I think you’re better than you give yourself credit for,” he says simply, and gets up and walks out of the room, leaving Sloane stunned and alone on the bed.

 

***

 

Sloane has a nightmare.

  
When she opens her eyes, she doesn’t remember a bit of it, but every instinct in her is adrenaline-fueled and screaming at her to run.

  
She ends up on the roof, alone this time, hunched over and shaking like a leaf in a storm. Flashes of the dream have come back to her, in green vines and greener blood and white, all-consuming light, and she wants no part of it.

  
She remembers what she told Angus — that in thirty years, she’s made only herself proud. She’s not even sure if that’s true. Right now, she’s crying on a roof, curled in on herself and wishing she could just forget again, and she must look fucking pathetic.

  
Without thinking, she pulls the ring from her pocket and turns it over in her hands, watching the moonlight reflect on the metal while her tears dry on her cheeks. She thinks, maybe, she knows why she had it. Because it physically hurts to think about and doesn’t make sense, but there was a brief part of the dream where two things were true.

  
She did not miss Hurley.

  
She felt like she was home.

  
She wants so badly to start over. A _real_ restart, not whatever the fuck this is. She doesn’t even know what she’s missing. She just wants the ache in her chest gone.

  
She falls asleep on the roof and wakes up with a sore back and a headache, but the last impressions of the nightmare have faded. The sun is rising over the trees and she can hear gleeful whooping somewhere nearby. It’s almost peaceful.

 

***

 

Angus keeps his eyes on the floor as the woman talks about her organization. How he’s such a smart boy and a wonderful detective, and they could use his help. He finally looks up when she finishes her speech with a gentle, “Think about it, won’t you?”

  
Slowly, carefully, he says, “I’ll know all the staticky things.”

  
“Yes, Angus.”

  
“Can I investigate them still?”

  
She sighs, folds her hands on the table they’re sitting at. “Angus, for what we’re looking for, it’s too dangerous. I’m sorry.”

  
“Not the — things. People.”

  
She looks surprised. “Well — it depends how connected they are.”

  
“I won’t find an object here,” he says, “That chance went away a few weeks ago, I think.”

  
“What?”

  
He raises his chin. “There was a powerful object there. It’s gone now.” He lets the woman absorb that before continuing, “But I might still be able to find someone.”

  
“Well — we’ll see. I’ll do what I can.”

  
Angus stares at his own hands now, where they rest on an open page of a Caleb Cleveland novel. “Can I say goodbye?”

  
“For safety’s sake, no. I’m sorry.”

  
He nods slowly. “Okay. Okay, I’ll go with you, ma’am.”

  
She smiles, eyes crinkling at their corners. “Excellent. Delighted to have you, dear.”

  
He gathers his backpack and book and stands from the table. As he follows the woman through the building to the back exit, he asks, “Ma’am?”

  
“Yes, Angus?”

  
“What’s your name?”

  
She pauses, holding open the door, and says finally, “Madame Director is fine. If you don’t mind my asking, who are you looking for?”

  
“My friend,” he says, “Sloane. I think the object you were looking for killed her.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wrote this almost entirely on a phone it's almost completely unedited and im about to go off the grid for a week please enjoy

Madame Director was right. The liquid she gives him doesn't taste… great.

Angus looks up from the cup and opens his mouth to ask if there's sweetener he can add to it when his eye is caught by the tank. He can see what's inside it now, he realizes, and it's a large, multicolored jellyfish-like creature. Its tendrils sweep through the water, sparking with light, and the word  _ voidfish  _ pops into his head.

“Oh my gosh,” he whispers.

Madame Director smiles down at him. “I don't know how much you'll remember, per se, because you're very young,” she says softly, “But what we erased here, with the voidfish’s help —” she pats the glass fondly, “Is a war. It was called the Relic War, and it claimed thousands of lives and town after town while it ran its course.”

Angus remembers a little bit. Passages in textbooks that seemed vague or just didn't make sense, spots on maps where towns should be and he just couldn't see it or read the name. He nods, eyes still locked on the voidfish. “What were they fighting over, ma’am?”

She sighs. “Some time ago, there was an order of wizards called the Red Robes. They created seven items — relics — with immense power and pull and released them into the world. Everyone wanted them, and when they got them, they caused nothing but death.”

Her voice gains a bitter edge, and Angus finally looks back up at her. She looks a little sad, almost. He connects the dots and makes a mental note —  _ Madame Director seems guilty. _

She seems to shake herself and puts a half-smile back on, and she is back to the tight-shouldered, regal woman who came looking for him in Goldcliff.  _ Goldcliff. _

And he knows, more or less, what happened to Sloane.

“Did you erase the things the Relics did, ma’am?” he asks. He knows the answer, really. It only makes sense.

The Director nods. “There would be so many confused people, wondering where their family and town went,” she says, “And they’d — well, I suppose they’d investigate.”

“They would,” he agrees, “You erased something in Goldcliff.”

She gives a resigned nod. “A young woman got a hold of one of the Relics. The Gaia Sash.”

“Sloane,” says Angus firmly, “Her name is Sloane, and she's alive.”

“Yes, you… mentioned that.” The Director gestures to the doorway, wordlessly asking Angus to walk with her. He tosses the cup into a nearby convenient trash can and trots after her, mind buzzing and, he thinks, sharper than ever before.

“The Gaia Sash gives its user control over nature,” she begins, “Storms, plants, that sort of thing. Your friend, if I remember correctly, discovered the sash where its last user left it before dying — a cave system under the cliff. She used it at first to win races, then to rob, and eventually became so corrupted by its power that she turned to murder. She killed mostly the rich of Goldcliff, but there were often casualties among the civilians.” She pauses, and Angus tries to think about Sloane killing someone. She threatened that guy the first day they met, but she thought he was going to hurt Angus. The memory, however frightening the sight of Sloane looming over the poor guy had been, is oddly warm in his chest. Maybe Sloane had killed, but The Director said she'd been corrupted. Maybe Sloane is different now than she was before the war, but he’s sure she's good. After all, Hurley likes her, and Hurley is very good.

“Sloane died,” Lucretia says, “A little before the end of the war. She was chased into a corner, and she caused an earthquake that ruined the city.”

Angus remembers crumbling buildings and cracked streets. “What about the plants?”

The Director sighs. “The working theory is that Sloane unleashed the energy of the Sash on the city. Later, after I created the Bureau, I went to look for it, but the Sash was buried in the earthquake, and its power, Angus, has taken over the city.”

They're in the quad now, with all the domed buildings and a few Bureau employees walking around. The Director says softly, “I'm sure you saw its most prominent inhabitants?”

Something clicks in his head. “The Sash changed them?”

“My theory is,” she says, hand clenched around her staff, “That those people died in the earthquake, and the magic revived them in those forms. The Sash can't manufacture life, Angus, so every revived person in Goldcliff is in a kind of half-life powered by what remains of it. They have to be.”

“Sloane,” he says, and the last piece of the puzzle is sliding into place. “Sloane is a harpy, but she looks kinda like a half-elf except for the bird stuff. She doesn't remember anything from longer than ten years ago. And… you…  _ erased  _ her. Not just the city.”

“It was unfortunately necessary,” Madame Director says, but Angus is thinking about how scared Sloane looked when he asked about her last name, when he said he thought she might have died. Sloane has nothing left. The Bureau took it from her.

He opens his mouth, not sure what he's going to say, when a whoop from nearby interrupts him. “Boy detective!” someone yells, and he turns.

Magnus is approaching rapidly, Merle waddling behind him and Taako walking so slowly Angus has to squint to see him moving. When Magnus reaches them, he reaches down and plucks Angus’s hat right off his head.

“Hey!” Angus protests.

“Magnus,” the Director says with a thin smile, and Magnus shrugs and drops the hat into Angus’s outstretched arms.

“I thought you died,” Taako calls.

Angus blinks at him. “No, I’m… alive. I’m a perfectly good flesh boy.”

“Are you evil?” Merle says suspiciously.

Angus shakes his head. “I’m not! Madame Director asked me to come, um, work here?”

Merle stares at him unblinkingly for a few eerie moments, then looks up at the Director. “Is he evil?”

“No,” she says firmly, “He was just asking me some questions about how the voidfish works.”

“Ooh, yeah, you, uh, wipe anyone off the face of the Earth lately?” Taako asks. Angus watches the Director’s smile become  _ fractionally  _ more strained.

“It’s good that you’re here, boys, because I have a new job for you,” she says. She reaches down to pat Angus’s shoulder and pulls away when he simply stares up at her. She clears her throat. “Angus, here, hails from Goldcliff, and there's  _ quite  _ the situation down there. If you all could come to my office tomorrow morning, I’ll be able to fill you in.”

The trio glances at each other and shrugs. “Will there be punching?” Magnus asks.

“Possibly,” the Director says.

“Hell yeah. I’m down.” All three high five and take off across the quad, cackling about something Angus doesn't catch. When they're left alone, the Director turns to him and kneels down to eye level.

“You understand, don’t you?” she says softly, “If people remembered what Sloane could do and remembered the Gaia Sash, it could happen again and again. I didn’t know she would come back, Angus.”

He stares at her. Finally, he says, “Can you fix it?”

She hesitates. “Theoretically.”

“She doesn’t know who she is, ma’am. She knows her name and that’s it.” He swallows, pushes his glasses back up on his nose. “Please fix it. Even just for her.”

“I’d have to inoculate her, Angus.”

Angus stares at her, and she closes her eyes. When she opens them, she says, “I can send Magnus, Taako, and Merle down with the ichor, but I can’t guarantee anything past that. She has to drink it.”

Angus nods, unable to stop the smile returning to his face. “You said I’ll be able to talk to them. I can definitely get her to drink it.”

The Director holds out her hand, and Angus grabs it. “Thank you.”

She smiles at him again, lets go of his hand, and rises to her feet, back to the near-unaffected, collected woman he met in the library in Goldcliff. Angus goes over his list again:

A; The Director seems guilty. She does not enjoy doing what is often necessary, but does it anyways.

B; The Director seems to consistently pursue the good of the many over the good of the few, but often regrets this, especially when it results in the harm of the few. Likely related to A.

C; The Director does not make promises she can’t keep. It is possible she prefers to stay in control of the situation.

In summary: the Director has personal morals, but may ignore them for what she believes is the more successful option. Ultimately, her goal is to make things roll smoothly and for everything to work out, with as few mistakes as possible on the way.

Therefore, her decision to inoculate Sloane is an outlying variable, as it could cause more trouble than she may think it's worth. Angus feels a rush of gratitude at the thought as he realizes she trusts him to see this through after less than a day on base. He's so used to being doubted and underestimated, but the Director believes in him so quickly, just like Sloane.

_ I figured it out, Sloane _ , he thinks to… not really himself. Maybe hoping Sloane hears it, somehow.  _ I’m gonna help you figure it out, too. _

 

***

 

Angus sits in the corner and smiles at the trio of adventurers while the Director reminds them that they own Stones of Farspeech and warns them about the state of Goldcliff. She gestures to him near the end. “Angus will be on call at all times. Well -- not one a.m., because he’s just a little boy, but if he is not available I likely will be.”

Angus waves at them, then looks to the Director. “Ma’am, the ichor, right?”

“Ah. Thank you for reminding me.” She reaches under her desk and pulls out a vial of inky liquid. Taako raises his eyebrows as she shakes it at them.

“I owe a friend of Angus’s something of a favor, it seems,” she says, “I expect he’ll be able to tell you more, but the gist of it -- I accidentally erased the life of a living person. Please find the harpy Sloane and give this to her.”

“ _ Harpy _ ?” Magnus yelps.

Taako rolls his eyes and shoves his shoulder. “S’just a big bird person, Mags. Chill the fuck out.”

Magnus rubs his shoulder where Taako hit him, then puffs his chest out and grins. “Yeah, I’m chill! I’m super chill! Big bird person. I can totally fight that.”

“Please don’t fight Sloane, sir,” Angus cuts in quickly.

“What the  _ fuck  _ is the point if I can't fight anything?”

“Boys, please,” the Director says. She slides the bottle of ichor towards Taako, who heaves a dramatic sigh, takes it, and stuffs it into his bag.

“Now,” the Director says, “Angus tells me that the Relic in Goldcliff has been destroyed. Your job is to confirm that, and if it isn't, follow normal procedure to recover it.”

“What if it is?” Taako asks, “You can’t, uh -- you can’t expect us to gather up all the little dust particles.”

“No,” the Director agrees, “And I suspect either way that the Relic’s energy has attached itself to the city, in a way. In the case that recovering the Relic is not an option, you’ll simply withdraw from the city. We’ll figure out what to do about it from there.”

“The Gaia Sash,” Angus says. Four pairs of eyes turn towards him, and he flushes. “Um, Madame Director didn't tell you all what the Relic was. The Gaia Sash.”

The Director blinks, then smiles. “Ah, yes. Thank you, Angus. It completely slipped my mind.”

“Gettin’ old’s a bitch, huh?” Merle snorts.

The Director looks like she’s pressing back a frown. “Sure is.”

“Maybe she erased the name,” Taako snickers. Magnus laughs heartily and gives Taako a shove, nearly launching him halfway across the room.

The Director forces a laugh.  _ “Boys _ ,” she says, “Please don't throw each other across the room. Avi’s ready in the hangar with coordinates to send you off.”

“Blast us?” Taako says.

The Director lets out a long, slow sigh while the trio giggle to each other. “Angus, you’ll be staying in here.”

“You told me, ma’am.”

“I did. Alright. Boys, please.”

“We’re outta your hair, bubbeleh.” Angus watches Taako rise and saunter over to the door. “C’mon, buttheads. Plant time.”

The trio disappear into the hallway, and the Director shakes her head after them.

“Will they call in when they arrive?” Angus asks.

“I certainly hope so,” she chuckles, and starts pulling important-looking papers out from under her desk. Angus watches her for a few moments.

“What are those, ma’am?” he says. The Director looks up at him and raises her eyebrows.

“Life insurance details,” she says, waves her hand, and presents a paper to Angus.

He examines it for a moment, tilting his head and frowning in concentration. “Ma’am,” he says finally, “All that says is ‘don’t die’ in very big letters.”

“And that, young Angus, is the greatest life insurance there is.” She pulls the paper back. Angus catches sight of the words ‘don’t die’ shifting for just a second before she flips it over and places it on a stack on the other side of the desk.

Interesting.

Fifteen minutes of tapping his feet later, Angus’s Stone crackles to life, and Taako’s voice warbles into the air.

“Alright, Encyclopedia Brown, we’re comin’ to ya live from Goldcliff proper,” he drawls, “Don’t mind M&M screaming in the background, I think they, uh -- oh, damn. That's, uh, a big plant, huh. Anyways, what’s first?”

Angus looks up at the Director, not sure what to say. She smiles at him and gestures to the Stone. “Go ahead, Angus,” she says in a stage whisper, “What’s first?”

He manages a small smile in return, turns back to the Stone, and swallows. What  _ is  _ first? The Gaia Sash is most likely unrecoverable, and they need to contain it. Sloane is missing, and they need to find her. Goldcliff is crumbling, and it would be convenient if they could do  _ something  _ about that.

What first? Where to  _ start? _

“Kid?” Taako says. Angus blinks, and smiles.

“I have a friend in Goldcliff,” he says, “She knows Sloane. Sloane needs the ichor, and then she’ll know the Gaia Sash. She was under its thrall.”

“Well, that’s pretty convenient. Hey, assholes, we got a lead!” His voice fizzles out, and Angus waits with bated breath until it returns, and Taako says, “Alright, give us the deets, little man.”

 

***

 

Hurley was having a pretty awful week even before Sloane disappeared into thin air.

Were there highlights? Sure. There always were. The kid was nice and pretty helpful and the house was, yes, more livable than her unfortunate apartment. Sloane seemed to be in a better mood than she had been in a long time, although Hurley suspected at least thirty percent of it was a facade. Things were decent.

But Hurley, also unfortunately, leaned a little to the pessimistic side as of late.

The place she’d lived in for five or so years had  _ literally  _ sunk into the ground, taking ninety percent of her belongings with it. Which meant starting from scratch in an unfamiliar house with a ten year old detective, a harpy that she was kind-of-maybe dating, and some stale fantasy Ritz crackers that she found in the pantry. Races were, apparently, just not happening anymore, so that was the closest thing to a schedule in her life gone. Hurley is very bad at doing things without a plan. And Sloane, although in a better mood, seemed more and more distant, which flat out just fucking  _ hurt. _

On Friday, which was supposed to be a  _ good _ day, damn it, she woke up in a cold room with a cold bed and an open window. She didn't think much of it, initially -- Sloane’s wings didn't  _ quite  _ fit on the bed, which didn't stop her from trying but did lead to her falling off the bed nine out of ten nights. She’d probably just gotten fed up and gone to sleep in the living room, or maybe stare longingly at the stars all night.

Sloane wasn’t in the living room, but Angus was perched on the back of the couch, eating some dry cereal from a plate. He waved at Hurley, who mumbled something about not breaking the couch and wandered into the kitchen. Sloane was also not in the kitchen.

“Angus,” she calls, “Have you seen Sloane?”

“No, Miss Hurley,” he responds, voice muffled by fantasy Cheerios. “Have you looked outside?”

“I shouldn't have to look outside at eight a.m.,” Hurley mutters, but she pokes her head out the front door and glances around. Once upon a time, she’d been more of a morning person, but a lack of schedule had ruined that pretty well.

Sloane is not conveniently lounging on the street, or the sidewalk, and a look upwards tells Hurley she’s  _ probably  _ not on the roof. It is eight a.m. on a Friday, and Sloane is not here.

_ She's probably just wandering around,  _ Hurley thinks as she goes back inside.  _ Maybe she's racing without me,  _ as she throws on a coat.  _ Or harassing Maarvey,  _ as she gets her shoes on.

“Miss Hurley?” Angus says, jolting her from the absolute storm cloud of worry brewing in her head. She glances back at him -- he’s still sitting on the back of the couch, his cereal in real danger of falling to the floor, and his eyes concerned behind his round glasses.

“Is Sloane gone?” he asks.

“No,” Hurley says immediately, firmly, then repeats it softer. “No, she’s -- she’s probably just wandering around somewhere. She’s fine, I’m sure.”

He looks at her for a long moment. Then he hops off the couch -- Hurley cringes as he switches his plate to one precarious hand -- and walks into the kitchen. He dumps his remaining cereal into the trash, puts his plate in the sink with a dysfunctional faucet, and goes to put his shoes on. Hurley watches him, and finally starts, “Angus --”

“I’m helping you look,” he says, simply, as he bends to tie his laces. When he finishes, he looks back up at Hurley.

She closes her mouth and nods.

They start with nearby streets, hopping over cracks as wide as Hurley’s thumb and keeping an eye out for black feathers, yellow eyes, and a fanged grin. At some point, it starts raining, and Hurley tosses her coat over Angus’s head and starts walking faster, raising her voice over the distant rumbles of thunder to call Sloane’s name.

She’s not at any of the usual race sites. Hurley and Angus ask everyone they see --  _ have you seen Sloane, have you seen a harpy around, let us know if you see her  _ \-- with no success the entire day. Hurley even considers tracking down Maarvey and his gang, but it’s raining and starting to get late and Angus is shivering under Hurley’s coat.

Sloane isn't at the house when they get back. Hurley’s last bit of hope evaporates in her chest as she double-checks every room, and she walks into the kitchen to see Angus shuffling around in the pantry.

He glances around to look at her, then turns back to the cabinet. “Um, I thought we should probably definitely at least have dinner since we just kinda skipped any kind of lunch,” he says, “We don’t have a lot, though. There's not -- there's probably not a functional market here anymore, right?”

“There's some vendors on nice days, but, uh.” She half-heartedly gestures to the window, which is speckled with the rain that's now pouring down. She doesn't say anything about how Sloane used to find most of the food she had in her apartment.

Angus nods, reaches farther back, and pulls out a box, giving it an experimental shake and then grinning as he holds it up for Hurley to see.

“Huh,” Hurley says, “Pasta. Your grandpa leave that here?”

“I wouldn’t know, but probably,” he says cheerfully.

They end up using plain butter as a substitute for any kind of sauce, which bores Hurley out of her mind but at least it's food after a day of mostly worrying and getting rained on. It's silent at the tiny table until Angus starts talking about his Caleb Cleveland books, and how there's a new one coming out soon, and rumors about a stage adaptation. Hurley listens for a while, and when he pauses to catch a breath, she says, “Angus, why are you still here?”

He looks startled for a moment, and pushes his glasses up on the bridge of his nose with a thoughtful expression. Hurley continues, “I mean, kiddo -- you have family to stay with, and books to read, and you’re here, what? Solving a mystery in a crumbling town, staying with an ex-cop who can’t even keep track of her -- her partner?”

“Miss Hurley,” he says slowly, “I’m here to find out what happened in Goldcliff, and to a harpy who can’t remember her own last name. I am staying with a kind and considerate woman who walks around in the rain for a day to find said harpy, and who doesn't treat me like I’m a baby.”

Hurley opens her mouth, and Angus raises his chin. “I know what I’m doing. I’m happy to help, really.”

They stare at each other for a few moments, and then Angus looks down at his buttery pasta. “This would be a lot better with marinera. I wish we had marinera.”

“We’ll look for a vendor tomorrow, weather willing,” Hurley says. She stabs a fork into her own bowl and scowls when the pasta slips off the tines, while Angus giggles.

 

***

 

On the third day after Sloane disappears, Hurley suggests they check the city library, just in case. Angus’s eyes light up like she’d just offered him a lifetime supply of fantasy Snickers, and he somehow manages to drag her all the way there without knowing the way.

The library is missing one of its huge double doors, the other hanging off its hinges, with chunks of stone clumped around the base like baby birds around their mother, but Angus looks delighted. He charges in, Hurley hurrying after him, and briefly disappears before reappearing near a dusty shelf labeled ‘YOUNG ADULT; MYSTERY.’

“Any Caleb Cleveland?” Hurley calls. Angus shakes his head and keeps browsing, grinning as he pulls out a small paperback and starts leafing through it.

Sloane ends up not being in the library, which Angus seems mildly surprised by, but he leaves with three new books in his arms after Hurley promises him he wouldn’t get in trouble for just taking them.

He holes up in the room he’s claimed with the books for a few hours, and tells Hurley as they fix something for dinner that he’s already finished one of the books.

“I guessed the culprit halfway through, but I thought I’d give it the benefit of the doubt,” he says proudly.

Hurley whistles. “You read really fast, huh?”

He nods. Hurley chuckles. “I wasn't much of a booky kid. There were a few I liked, but I always preferred going out and climbing a tree or something.”

“Sloane said she read books,” Angus says, softly, “She said anyone who read books was a nerd, including her.”

“That does sound like Sloane,” Hurley says. She spends the rest of dinner quiet as she tries to figure out why the idea of Sloane  _ reading  _ gives her so much déjà vu.

They slow the search over the next few days. Hurley’s reasoning is that with all the people they've asked, Sloane either comes back or she doesn't, and they'll know either way.

She doesn't tell Angus her reasoning. He seems to get it anyways. Kid’s smart as hell. He starts going to the library by himself in the mornings, with the promise to stay safe and holler if he sees Sloane.

Monday afternoon, three weeks after Sloane is gone, Hurley  _ knows  _ Angus wouldn't stay so late at the library. And she’s right, because he’s gone and no one saw him leave.

Hurley hopes to every god she can think of that he went to stay with his relatives.

 

***

 

Of all the things Hurley expected to see today, a trio of people scaling a building was not one of them.

She watches them make absolutely no progress for a few minutes and flinches as the shortest of the three loses his footing on a window ledge and nearly topples. Another of the three, sporting a large hat, grabs him by the scruff of the neck and places him more or less safely back on the ledge.

Hurley slowly approaches, craning her neck to see them against the sun. The big one notices her after a second and calls, “Hail and well met! How’s it going?”

“You know, it could be better,” she calls back, “What are you all -- uh, what are you doing?”

The one with the big hat -- an elf, if the ears are any indication -- grins down at her. “Saw somethin’ shiny up here. Thought it might be our lucky day.”

“The sun?”

All three exchange a glance, then the short one shoves the elf’s legs. “You dumbass! Did you fail the perception check?”

The elf squawks indignantly and shoves back, and the big one grabs both of them and tosses them halfway down the building to the ground before jumping down himself. Every single one of them lands on their face. The elf raises his hand in a thumbs-up sign, and then an ‘okay’ sign. “Get cucked,” he groans.

“Wow,” Hurley says, “That was complete nonsense. What the fuck does that mean?”

“That’s, uh, another Taako original, bay- _ bee _ .” He drags himself to his feet, kicks the big guy in the ribs, and starts dusting off his skirt. “Just a little family friendly fun, from yours truly.”

“I hate you guys,” says the short one, who Hurley is pretty sure is a dwarf. The elf -- Taako, assumably -- pulls out a pair of sunglasses and puts them on. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Blocking out the haters, my man,” he warbles. The dwarf makes a noise that sounds like a dying cat while the big guy gets up and strides towards Hurley.

He sticks his hand out, grinning widely down at her. He looks like he’s missing a couple teeth, and he has a scar over his right eye, but he exudes an aura not unlike a big friendly dog, so Hurley takes his hand in hers.

“Name’s Magnus,” he says, “That's Taako and Merle. We’re here on super important secret business.”

“I’m Hurley,” she replies. Magnus’s eyes widen, and he looks back at Taako and Merle, who are still sniping at each other.

“Guys!” he calls, “It’s Hurley!”

Both their heads snap up, and Merle starts waddling over. Taako raises his eyebrows, straightens his hat, and approaches as well, and Hurley looks back up at Magnus in confusion.

“You’re part of the secret business!” Magnus tells her excitedly.

“What,” Hurley says.

Taako fishes something out of the bag he has slung over his shoulder. Hurley recognizes a Stone of Farspeech, and he presses the output button and says, “Hey, little man, we found your friend.”

Hurley frowns in confusion. The Stone of Farspeech crackles, and then a familiar voice comes on through the interference.

“Miss Hurley?” says Angus’s voice, “Hello. I’m okay, I promise!”

“Holy shit, Angus!” Hurley yells. She grabs for the Stone, but Taako snatches it away.

“This is, uh, private property,” he says, “Clearly you can hear him fine.”

“Where is he?” Hurley demands.

“He’s helping us at a secret base!” Magnus says cheerfully. After a second, he adds, “Willingly.”

“That’s where I went,” Angus says, voice apologetic. “I didn't have time to tell you. I’m sorry for making you worry.”

Hurley closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Okay,” she mutters, “Alright. Okay. Alright. What -- what are you doing?”

Taako opens his mouth, but Merle reaches up and places his hand on his elbow. Taako lurches away, and Merle looks up at Hurley with a very serious expression.

He says, “We’re looking for --”

Static interrupts his voice, but he keeps talking. Hurley looks at Taako’s Stone of Farspeech, but he’s not pressing any buttons, and the static completely scrambles Merle’s words.

He closes his mouth and nods firmly. Hurley presses her hands back against her eyes.

“You didn't hear any of that, right?” Magnus says.

She shakes her head.

“Told you. It's secret.”

Angus’s voice comes on over the Stone of Farspeech again. “If it's more helpful, you could ino--”

“No, you could not,” says an unfamiliar woman’s voice, “That’s not a risk you all can take right now.”

Hurley stares at Magnus. “Who is that?”

He almost deflates a little. “Our boss.”

Angus speaks again. “Well. Now that you have Hurley, you have a better chance at finding Sloane, who has a better chance at helping you with the--”

His voice cuts off just like Merle’s. Hurley bites back a groan of frustration. “What does Sloane have to do with this?”

“You won’t understand me if I say it,” Angus says, almost sadly.

They manage to explain the gist of it to Hurley, although all the static gives her a headache by the end. They're trying to find  _ something,  _ and Sloane probably knows how to deal with the thing, but they have to find her and ‘make her remember’ first. The whole thing is vaguely eerie, but straightforward enough. Other than, you know, the static, mysterious adventurers and their more mysterious boss, and Angus being a part of it at all.

“I’ve been looking for Sloane for almost a month,” Hurley says, as the four of them start making their way down the street, “I can't promise I’ll do any better at finding her than you guys would.”

“Of course you can't,” Taako says. Merle whacks his arm.

“It’s better than nothing,” Magnus reassures her, “We do super bad even with help, so it's even.”

“I don't think that's how it works.”

“They crashed a train,” Angus chimes from the Stone. “No offense, sirs, but there's no shame in asking for help.”

“Hey, that train was a fucking  _ sick  _ stunt and you know it,” Taako protests.

“I lost two teeth, sir.”

Hurley shakes her head. If she's learning anything from this, it's that sometimes asking questions makes things worse.

 

***

 

Sloane isn't sure where she is.

She woke up feeling displaced, like she was in the wrong body, the wrong place, maybe the wrong time. She needed to find the right place, so she left.

It hasn't been too long, right? She dimly hopes Hurley isn't worried. Or Angus. But it's hard to tell time here.

It turns out that the cliff this city is so famously named for -- it has a cave system. Logic says it's probably connected to the hole in the center of the city. Instinct says  _ leave, leave, leave, the walls feel like death closing in. _

It  _ is  _ familiar, though.

She has to tuck her wings in tight to make her way through some tunnels. Others are caved in, or just too small. That's fine. Everything's fine.

At one point, she finds a skeleton collapsed near a stone pedestal. Flowers are blooming through the sockets of its eyes, thorns wrapping around its ribcage, its hands outstretched as if pleading for help.

The headaches are back. She thinks, maybe, they've always been there. It's hard to notice something is wrong when it is your normal. But it isn't her normal, is it?

_ “Here’s my theory,” Angus says. _

What was his theory? She knows it. She knows. She can't think it -- she can’t even try, can’t even collapse on the ground trying to remember. But she knows his conclusion. Angus was right.

Her head hurts. She thinks about clawing her eyes out. Like ripping off a bandaid. Then at least they wouldn't water whenever she sees a fucking plant.

She realizes after what could have been hours that she's going in circles. Black feathers litter the ground here and there, fallen off her wings. She sits on the ground for a while, tries to tuck a few feathers back into her wings for no real reason and watches them fall back out.

_ Maybe I’m balding _ , she thinks. It's the first thought she'd had that's remotely upbeat since she got into these caves. She decides to carve it into the wall.

Once that’s done, she also carves in a little heart with the letters H and S inside. One last salute to a teenaged, hopeless romantic Sloane that had to have existed at some point.

She’s completely alone, right now. Even if she was herself -- and she's more and more sure she’s not -- it’s hard to be romantic at all. The little heart in the wall feels one step displaced from normal.

She misses Hurley. She can’t go home, now. Something down here is going to keep her down here until it's done with her, she knows it. And when it's done with her, will there be a home left?

Maybe it's because she’s just displaced from normal, but she can hope. She can hope that home is closer than she thinks, warm and quiet and with Hurley’s arms around her, never gone again.

She falls asleep in the tunnel, dreams full of static and the groan of falling trees and a freckled face split in a smile.

 

***

 

Sloane wakes up with a killer ache in her back. She stretches her arms over her head, groaning and snarling as she hears bones pop and shift back into place, then looks around the cavern.

It's the same as it was when she fell asleep. She pulls herself to her feet on the wall and idles for a moment, the carved heart cold under her fingers.

She continues on through the tunnels, hoping she’s not still going in circles. Once in a while, she hears water dripping on the floor, but she can never find the source. She chalks it up to hallucinations and promises herself she won’t die of thirst in some shitty caves.

After what feels like hours, she sees light reflecting off the stone walls and dancing on the floor. She quickens her pace, then freezes a few moments later as she hears voices.

Someone is speaking loudly at the end of the tunnel. They sound frustrated, or confused, or both. Another voice chimes in, wobbly and disparaging, then a third that sounds like a very old tree giving up the ghost.

Sloane slowly approaches the turn of the tunnel, blinking and squinting as she steps into the light. She realizes the voices are coming from above her before they go completely silent.

She stumbles back as the air shivers around her and there is suddenly someone yelling very, very close to her. Her vision clears in time to see a broad man swinging an axe directly at her, and then the flat of the blade connects with her chest and she feels several somethings crack.

She realizes after a second that she’s face down on the ground, and her wing is crumpled against the tunnel wall. Her mouth tastes like iron, the back of her head is warm and wet, and oh,  _ fuck _ , everything hurts. She’s pretty sure she starts crying as she struggles to sit up and glares at her attacker.

“Oh, shit,” he says, eyes wide.

Sloane clenches her jaw hard against the shout that bubbles up in her throat as she forces herself to her feet, takes a step forward, and launches herself at the man. He yells and drops his axe as she slams into him, if the clatter of metal on stone is any indication, but only stumbles before righting himself. Sloane digs her nails into the joint of his armor and wrenches his shoulder forward. She leans forward until their noses are nearly touching.

“Who the  _ fuck _ do you think you are?” she hisses.

“Magnus Burnsides?” he offers weakly.

Sloane is ready to rip out his throat for that, tears still spilling over her cheeks and her ribs feeling like they're  _ burning _ , but she jerks back in surprise as a familiar voice reaches her ears. Unbalanced by her now-useless right wing, which also hurts like  _ fuck _ , she loses her grip on the man and falls back to the ground, groaning as her entire body protests painfully.

“Don’t hurt Sloane, holy shit, Magnus!” says the familiar voice, again, and Sloane opens her eyes a crack to see a small humanoid shape bending over her. As her vision focuses, she sees curly dark hair, freckles, and bleeding lips.

“You gotta stop chewing on your lips like that,” she mumbles.

“ _ Sloane _ ,” is all that Hurley says before Sloane feels her press a kiss to Sloane’s forehead. Then, “Fuck you. Fuck you  _ so _ much.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Fuck you, though.”

“Heartwarming!” calls the warbling voice from above.

Sloane doesn’t bother to open her eyes again as she speaks. “Hurley, who are these guys?”

She can hear the grimace in Hurley’s voice as she replies, “Friends.”

“One of them broke, like… all of my ribs.”

“Yeah, they're not very competent, but -- they’re here to help.”

_ Help with what _ , Sloane starts to ask, and then she feels a rough, unfamiliar hand on her shoulder. Her eyes snap open and she bares her teeth at Magnus, who steps back and holds up his hand in surrender.

“We are,” he says carefully, “Here on business… to find out….” He suddenly turns and cups his hands around his mouth to yell towards the hole in the ceiling that Sloane can now see. “Hey, Taako, Merle, can you come down here and help me out?”

“We might die!” yells the creaky tree voice, which belongs to a squat dwarf. His companion with the warbly voice is an elf with dark skin and blond hair, and he squints down at Magnus, leaning on a red umbrella.

“Suck it up!” Magnus shouts back. He turns towards Sloane and Hurley. “They can help explain.”

“I absolutely cannot!” the elf calls, “Taako is  _ good up here!  _ Thank you so much!”

A faint crackling noise comes from his direction, and a look of irritation crosses his face before he starts to dig something out of the bag slung over his shoulder.

Sloane sits up a bit more to get a better look and hisses as… pretty much everything pulses with pain. She feels Hurley’s hand on her back, steadying her, and shifts her gaze to Hurley’s face.

Hurley has tears in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks, and Sloane at once feels a deep pang of guilt. She reaches up to brush the tears away from Hurley’s face, and her heart stutters when Hurley leans into her touch with a weak smile and a look in her eyes Sloane can only describe as adoration. A sob rises in her throat and she leans forward, presses her face against Hurley’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and hopes Hurley can hear that it’s genuine.

“I know,” Hurley says, and Sloane knows she does.

“Hello, sirs and Miss Hurley,” says Angus, crackly and distant but very much Angus, “Did you find Sloane?”

Sloane startles and jerks away from Hurley, looking wildly around for the source of the voice until her eyes land on the stone Taako has clutched in his hand.

“Oh, that’s another thing,” Hurley says, “Angus is also helping, but from somewhere else.”

“What the  _ fuck, _ ” Sloane says.

“Oh, Sloane!” Angus chirps, “Are you alright? How are you?”

Sloane looks to Taako, who just raises his eyebrows at her, and clears her throat. “Um,” she says, then raises her voice a little, “I’m good, kid. What’s, uh -- what’s going on?”

“Yeah, hang on two seconds, little man,” Taako says into the stone. He glances down at Merle, who glares up at him, and then yells as Taako gives him a firm kick and sends him tumbling into the hole.

“What was that, sir?”

“Nothin’. Don't worry ‘bout it, Taako’s got it all under control.” He opens his umbrella, winks down at Magnus -- who is staring at him blankly -- and jumps. Rather than hitting the ground and dying immediately, his umbrella carries him slowly down to the ground, where he dusts off his skirt and grins around at his companions.

“Show-off,” Merle grumbles.

“Yeah. Anyways.” He reaches into his bag again, talking into the stone simultaneously. “It’s the, fuckin, uh, purple vial, right? With the -- yeah, yeah, Taako’s got it.”

“What else would it be, sir?”

“I don't fuckin’ know, man. I got a -- I have a rubber chicken in here.” He pulls out a small glass vial with purple liquid swirling inside it and holds it up. “Hey, Raven, looky here.”

Sloane squints at it. “What am I looking at?”

“Mem’ry juice, my avian friend.” Sloane is getting really tired of this dude’s winking. “Uh, Angus, if you wanna explain?”

“It’ll make you remember!” Magnus shouts helpfully.

“Remember what?” Sloane shifts her gaze between the three of them, then to Taako’s stone as it crackles again.

“What you forgot,” Angus says, “Like all that stuff we talked about, when I interviewed you? If you drink it, you’ll remember.”

Sloane glances to Hurley, but she just looks confused. “Why didn't any of you let me know about this?” Hurley asks, hand still on Sloane’s back.

“ _ Seeeeeecreeeeeeetsssss, _ ” Merle says.

“Whatever,” Sloane says, and holds out her hand. “I’ll drink it. Give it to me.”

She can feel Hurley’s worried gaze on the back of her neck as Taako hands her the vial. She uncorks it and stares down at the murky liquid inside.

“Um, maybe drink it slow?” Angus suggests, “It doesn’t taste very--”

“Bottoms up,” Sloane says, and tosses it back.

She closes her eyes reflexively against the taste, scowling, and hears Taako cackling into the stone. “Oh, my gods, Angus, she fucking --  _ hoooooly  _ shit, little man. Oh my gods. You have some wild friends.”

“Why did you do that,” Hurley mutters. Sloane can’t think of a response.

“Um, so, anyways,” Angus says. His voice seems clearer now, and Sloane slowly comes to the conclusion that there’s no more static in her brain. “So, I’m working with these guys -- Taako, Merle, and Magnus. Hi, sirs. They’re on a mission to find this relic, which hopefully you remember now? The--”

“The Gaia Sash,” Sloane says.

The cavern goes dead silent. She blinks her eyes open and sees four other pairs locked on her.

“Yeah,” Angus says, slowly, “I didn't realize you -- you knew what it was called.”

“Oh, it told me.”

“It -- it told you.”

“Can someone explain what’s  _ fucking _ happening, here?” Hurley says, “Because Sloane just spoke static. Like you guys.”

“Erased memories stuff,” Angus says quickly, but Sloane isn’t paying attention anymore. She’s staring at Hurley; the line of her jaw and lips, set stubbornly in a frown, and her wide, dark eyes, and her curly hair falling over her forehead, and every one of her freckles spattered over her skin like paint.

She remembers, now, the time she tried to count them. She got to eighty-three, just above Hurley’s collarbone, before giving up and kissing her right on the dopey grin.

“Hurley,” she whispers, and Hurley looks back at her, confused.

“What?” she says. Sloane’s heart drops into her stomach, and she suddenly wishes very hard she hadn’t already drank all of the liquid.

She shakes her head and looks away, her eyes landing on the hole in the cavern’s ceiling. She realizes belatedly where they are.

“So, um, Sloane?” Angus says. Sloane wrenches her gaze towards the stone, forgetting for a moment Angus isn’t  _ really  _ here.

“Sash’s gone,” she says flatly. “Destroyed.” She hopes she’s imagining the way the ground is trembling, and for once she ignores that familiar power that surrounds her. Or maybe she's just used to it.

“Well, that’s it, then,” Taako says, “Time to go.”

“You could find the dust, maybe,” she continues, “Belt is  _ super  _ gone, though. Exploded and then fell apart. I watched it happen.” She’s definitely not imagining the ground trembling.

“Well, we need to find what we can,” Magnus says after a long moment, “And, like… punch it? Make it stop being powerful?”

“She said it was  _ destroyed _ , genius,” Merle says. Sloane wants to say  _ I’m right here _ , but instead she thinks about them finding the Sash, or its power, at least. Then what happened when she found it. Hurley’s hand on her shoulder suddenly seems very far away, and the power seems  _ very  _ hard to ignore.

“Don’t.”

All eyes are on her again. Her mouth feels dry, but she can’t even bring herself to lick her lips. “You shouldn’t. You can’t control it.”

“Pardon?” Taako says.

“You want to control it? You’ll have to control the whole city.” She’s standing, she realizes, wobbling a little but upright. “That’s all it is now. It’s everywhere. I can feel it.”

“Madam Director said that might happen,” Angus says quietly.

“Even if you  _ could  _ control it, which you can’t, because the Sash is gone and everywhere and  _ you  _ never had the belt--” she  _ almost  _ feels a rush of pride here before she shoves it down-- “It would kill you. No one can  _ really  _ control it. It controls you.”

“Sloane,” Hurley says softly behind her, but she can’t focus on that right now. There's a different kind of fog in her mind now, and the ground is starting to shake under her feet. It's too much at once.

“You should all leave,” she says abruptly, unthinking. “This city is dying. It’s crumbling.”

As if on cue, a chunk of rock smashes to the ground a foot away from Taako, who jumps away. The cavern isn't quiet anymore. The earth around them groans as the walls shake, and dust begins to fill the air.

“Like that,” Sloane says.

“Goodbye! Leaving! Don’t know what the  _ fuck  _ is happening but Taako is  _ outie!” _ Taako turns on his heel and starts towards the wall, which he apparently intends to climb, but Magnus grabs him by the collar of his shirt and drags him back before meeting Sloane’s eyes.

“You guys are coming too,” he says firmly.

“Am I?” Sloane says.

_ “Yes,  _ we’re going now,” Hurley says firmly, grabbing her hand. Sloane stares down at their hands clasped together.

The ground beneath her feet gives a groan. She watches idly as cracks spread through it and widen, then glances back at Hurley.

Hurley looks  _ terrified.  _ Sloane couldn’t see Hurley’s face at all the last time the earth started falling apart around her.

It occurs to her, as the ground falls out from under her feet, that she doesn't have to die here twice.

She scoops Hurley up and leaps into the air, and for a few moments she can see the way out again, and Magnus and Merle and Taako dragging each other out of the hole. Then her right wing pulses with pain, and she stutters in the air and starts to fall. She thinks she might yell “Fuck!” as she goes, or maybe it's Hurley, but she  _ definitely  _ says it when she crashes unceremoniously to a chunk of the ground that’s somehow still intact.

“Well, that’s not an option,” she groans, and Hurley shakes her head against Sloane’s shoulder.

“The tunnel?” she offers weakly.

“The  _ tunnel,”  _ Sloane gasps, “You’re a genius and I  _ love  _ you.”

Hurley doesn't respond, but Sloane thinks she can feel her smile against her chest.

Sloane scrambles towards the tunnel, the earth roaring in her ears as it comes down. She has the time to hope the three dumbasses got out okay before diving into the darkness.

She can feel the earth closing in almost immediately, and speeds her pace as much as she dares. Her ribs are burning -- she can’t be sure, but she thinks she might be bleeding on the inside -- and her legs are unsteady beneath her, and there's no end in sight to this tunnel. She tries to focus on Hurley’s weight in her arms instead of panicking, but all coherent thought flies out the window as a rock slams down hard on her shoulders, sending her and Hurley tumbling to the ground.

After a few moments of flicking in and out of consciousness, she realizes she's half-slumped on the ground, sobbing in pain with Hurley’s arms around her, a hand on her cheek.

“It’s okay,” Hurley is whispering, her voice wobbly, and Sloane can see blood shining on her forehead. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Sloane whimpers.

“We can still get out. It’ll be okay, Sloane.”

“You’re hurt.”

“So are you. We’re gonna make it out together, okay?”

“I don't think we are, Hurls.”

The hope flickers out of Hurley’s eyes as another rock crashes down a few feet from them, but the warmth remains. “Then I’ll stay right here with you.”

“Until?”

Hurley raises her chin. “As long as it takes.”

Sloane sniffles, feeling for all the world like a scared kid, but she leans forward and presses her lips to Hurley’s. They taste like blood and tears.

“I’m so sorry,” she says when she pulls away.

“Me too,” Hurley says, and grabs Sloane’s hand. “We’re in real trouble now, huh?”

Sloane nods. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

As if it had been politely waiting for them to finish, the ceiling gives a final groan. Sloane watches it fall in slow-motion, then locks eyes with Hurley.

She may not be home, but it is one hell of a way to go out.

 

***

 

The last thing Angus hears from the Stone before it cuts out completely is what sounds like an earthquake.

He paces in the Director’s office for what feels like an entire day, trying  _ so very hard  _ not to bite his nails or snap his fingers or do any of the other things he does when he's nervous, like cry. He doesn't need to be nervous. It will be okay. It has to be okay. They have to be okay.

From one p.m. to three p.m., he waits for any sign that the trio are okay, that Sloane and Hurley got out alright. At three-oh-nine, the Stone crackles and he lunges for it, flashing Madame Director an apologetic look as he strains to hear words through the interference.

After a few moments, Taako’s voice comes in over the static. “Hey, Sherlock, you still there?”

“Sir!” Angus nearly bawls. “Are you alright? All I heard was an earthquake, and --”

“Yeah, yeah, three outta three, no missing limbs. It got, uh. It got high stakes down there, but we’re all good, little man. What, were you worried?”

_ “Yes.” _

“Jeez, alright.”

“What about Sloane and Hurley? Are they with you?”

Taako’s end gets very quiet very suddenly, and Angus resorts to tapping his fingers nervously on the stone until he says, “Uh, y’know, we -- we haven't run into ‘em yet. We looked a little bit -- they might still be down there, I don’t fuckin’ know. Hurley seems like she can take care of herself.”

“Down --  _ down there?  _ Didn't you see them get out?” He cringes as his voice trembles, but Taako just sighs.

“I don’t -- I dunno what to tell you. We haven’t seen ‘em, the cavern’s collapsed -- you might wanna, uh, prepare for the worst.”

Angus stares at the Stone, blinking away tears that are threatening to spill over. After a long moment of trying to swallow back a sob, he croaks, “Okay, sir,” and slams the Stone down on Madame Director’s desk before turning to sit down on the chair in the corner. He puts his face in his hands and inhales shakily, glaring at the floor through foggy glasses.

After a minute or two, the Director clears her throat. “I’m so sorry, Angus,” she says, and it sounds genuine, but Angus can't bring himself to care. “I know -- I know you cared about them.”

“Yeah,” he says thickly, and the room lapses back into silence.

After ten more minutes of trying not to cry, Angus excuses himself and leaves the office, ignoring the Director as she calls behind him to ask if he’d like to know when the Reclaimers returned. He walks across the quad to the employee dorms, where the Director showed him his room last night, and curls up in his bed to stare at the wall.

He falls asleep at some point, and it's as he blinks awake to a dark room and realizes that the events of earlier weren't a bad dream that he lets himself cry. He buries his face in his pillow and sobs for a while, and when he runs out of tears he goes back to sleep.

The next morning, he takes the books from the Goldcliff library out of his bag and leafs through them absentmindedly. One of them is a book about amnesia that he puts down after the first few pages.

A knock at his door brings him out of his thoughts, and he slides out of bed to open it. When he does, Magnus is looking down at him.

“Hello, sir,” he says.

“Hey, Ango,” he replies, looking sheepish. “Wanna talk?”

Angus shrugs and steps aside to let him in. Magnus has to duck his head to avoid hitting the door frame, and when he's inside he peers around curiously. “You live in here alone?”

“I guess. It's fine. I mean, I've only been here two nights, so I can’t really judge it.”

“Aren’t you, what, five?”

“I’m ten, sir.”

“Oh, right. Ten.” Magnus nods, then goes to sit on Angus’s bed and pats next to him. Angus gets the hint after a few seconds and joins him, for once not taking much note of how much bigger Magnus is than him.

“So, uh, Goldcliff,” Magnus starts, “How long were you there?”

Angus shrugs again. “Four weeks?”

“Yeah? How was it?”

“It was good. City’s a mess, but it was… good.” He snaps his mouth shut as his voice trembles, and hears Magnus sigh.

“I’m sorry about Hurley and Sloane, dude,” he says, “It’s… awful to lose people like that, no matter how long you knew them. I wish we could have saved them.”

Angus is starting to get the distinct feeling Magnus isn't just sympathizing, but he doesn't ask after it. “Thank you for trying, sir.”

“Yeah, I… from, y’know, the five hours I knew Hurley and from what the two of you said about Sloane, they seemed like good people. They didn't deserve that.”

“No,” Angus says softly.

“But, uh. Y’know, you’ve always got the good times with them, right? To think about, at least.” Angus can feel Magnus’s eyes on him, and after a few moments he continues. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Angus, this shit  _ sucks _ , but… you know, now you can help make sure it never happens again. And I dunno. Maybe it never really  _ stops  _ hurting, but I think it gets better, when you have something to care about.”

Angus nods slowly. After turning the words over in his head for a few moments, he says, “I think they'd like that.”

“I bet they would, buddy.”

Angus looks up at Magnus, finally, to see him with a uncharacteristically soft smile on his face. He can feel the tears returning, so instead of crying again, he leans forward and hugs Magnus tightly around the middle.

“Thank you, sir,” he says.

Magnus’s hand comes to rest on his back. “Anytime. And cry as long as you want, bud. I might cry too, though.”

Angus laughs, unsteady but genuine, and just hugs Magnus for a while more.

 

***

 

Beneath the surface of the center of Goldcliff, the earth churns and rearranges itself. Three sunsets and two sunrises pass, and as the sun rises on Goldcliff for the third time since the earthquake, a sapling slowly begins to push itself above the surface.

A humanoid with the face of a cricket watches from the third floor of a nearby building. Their antennae twitch in the wind, and as the sun reaches the middle of the sky and shines down on bright green buds, they let out a chuckle.

“I’ll be damned,” they murmur, “Motherfuckers aren’t done yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> title from eet by regina spektor thank u for reading


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